1. Field of the Invention
The present invention, in certain respects, relates to streaming media. In other respects, the present invention relates to a method of analyzing the perceived quality of streaming media.
2. Description of Background Information
The popularity and demand for Streaming Media Content on the Internet has increased the need to measure the quality of streaming media (data streams) at the receiving end of a data stream (stream receiver). Data streams comprise information arranged in data packets. Content developers, who use the services of content delivery networks, expect the best quality of multimedia (audio, video et al.) data packets possible to be delivered at the stream receiver. The content delivery networks, in turn, attempt to improve the delivery of data packets to the stream receiver for a fee. Quantitative measurements of the end user's perceived quality of the Streaming Media content will help in the attempt to provide the best quality of data packets.
Perceived quality measurements require a comparison of the original data stream with the data stream at the stream receiver. It is the nature of a content delivery network that at any end, only one version of a particular stream is available at any given time, the original data stream at the stream sender or the rendered data stream at the stream receiver. To enable measurement at any one end, one of the data streams must be recreated. For example, if a measurement is taken at the stream sender, then the rendered data stream would need to be recreated.
However, a disadvantage of obtaining the perceived quality measurement of the rendered data stream at the stream sender is that the quality score would only be available to the streaming content service provider. Since the measurements require highly intense computation, the processing capacity at the stream sender would need to be scaled for each stream receiver whose perceived quality is being measured. Stream sender recreation also eliminates an independent third party evaluation of the perceived quality at a stream receiver. What is needed is an efficient and effective way to obtain the perceived quality measurement.